chiairi

[cimaj67]

I posted in the lyme community, neck back,  and lastly iam here for answers about Chiari....Last June seemed the end of my life and beginning of hell....coming home from family trip..i started having major health issues plus neck spasm head pressure..etc.. too long to list..in and out of hosps..w/ 10 pain...till they found I have a modest chiari formation...herniated cervical discs  c34 not too bad..c6c7 same..but bad one at the c5c6 level..but i have NO arm pain..so the docs are leary about surg. ...and say w/ the chiari malforamtion..i still have alot of room in my brain so it does not interfere w/ my cervical spine.......................

Then i was diagnosed w/ Babesia a lyme parasite disease....iam now being treated for the disease..but my lyme doc and the other nero's do not believe my neck issues are from that?..yet they can't tell me what it is from???My symptoms are full severe necks spasm for 8 months in the neck to the brain stem and up...they say my neck is protecting something in my spine holding up my head by muscle spasm....and i have pressure around neck back of head around ears..eys bridge of nose....etc.....at first i never had any neck spasm I had some type of intercranial pressure....horrid and i never had a headache before..but this was pressure...now that is gone...iam left with 24/7 neck spasm presure..that is so severe I can't hold my head up sometime...goes into my head badly.........................Does anyone have this w/ chiair??????  After being told there is alot of room in their brain..2 nero surgs told me it is NO big deal...it maybe disc or lyme....but now they change their mind...when they felt the back of my neck last visit..they said they never saw something this bad...NO MEDS take this away...please help me..i cant take it no more..................

[cimaj67]

i have never had vertigo or dizzy spells..but i did sleep oon a tractinn pillow for my neck  all night and now i have pressure along w/ dizziness..guess it didn't help..i have facial tingling feels like someone is writing on face and eye pressure..but those two thing do not hurt only feel odd..yes arm weakness..i drop things..wonder if that is from disc? No hearing prob's right eye twitches little blurred sometimes..and yes a few migranes ....they r the first i ever had...yesterday i can bring it on worse by couging sneexe...never had that before....still not as bad as severe neck spasm into my head

[Dr. A. Srivastava]

Thank you very much for your question; although it is quite hard for me to give you a precise opinion here without being able to examine you, but I would try to provide you some relevant information about your health concern.

In Chiari malformations, the pressure in brain increases which manifests itself as dizziness, diplopia (blurring of vision), migraine like headaches, muscle weakness, facial pain, hearing problems, and extreme fatigue. Sometimes this malformation causes dizziness while working with hands above the shoulder level (which is a common part of your military routine). Treatment of Chiari malformation depends on the form, severity and associated symptoms. No treatment is required in asymptomatic cases other than regular monitoring. Symptomatic patients may require surgery (posterior fossa decompression surgery). The requirement and pros and cons of surgery in your case should be discussed with your doctor as he knows the severity of problem. Hope this helps.

[selmaS]

Hi..we do have a chiari forum here on MedHelp and I invite u to join our little family here.

May I ask did u have more MRI's of the rest of ur spine?....like cervical, thoracic and lumbar....the reason I ask is there r other other related conditions to chiari that u want to rule out like syringomyelia and tethered cord.

Stinosis can also affect chiarians and we tend to have bulging disks....so do ask to look a bit further and I hope u join us in the Chiari forum.
http://www.medhelp.org/forums/Chiari-Malformation/show/257

"selma"